The present invention generally relates to content delivery and more particularly to determining a delivery status based on commands sent during content delivery.
With the advent of the Internet, the content available for a user to view has proliferated. As access speed for downloading data from the Internet has increased, the types of content that can be downloaded have also increased. For example, users can now download videos from the Internet. These videos may be short videos, short clips of videos, or large movies. Typically, when these videos are sent to a requesting client, they are streamed from a server.
Services have been created where users can order content for streaming delivery. For example, movies may be ordered on demand from content providers. Also, news clips, sports clips, etc. may also be ordered. The user typically pays for these content downloads in a prepaid or postpaid fashion. In either case, the user is either charged when the content delivery is initiated or charged when it is finally delivered.
The streaming content of delivery is not always successful. For example, there may be problems with setting up a connection between the server and the client for the streaming delivery. Also, problems with delivering the content may occur during delivery. These problems may occur because of network problems independent from the user or content delivery service or because of problems at the client or server. In either case, the service that is providing the content assumes that the user has received the streaming content of delivery successfully. Thus, the user is billed for the download of the streaming content. This method provides many disadvantages. For example, a user must now take affirmative steps in order to have the charges reversed. This may be inconvenient for a user and also cause the user to not use the content delivery service again.